Dreamwidth Banned by PayPal in 2008 for Refusing to Censor Users(dw-news.dreamwidth.org)
dw-news.dreamwidth.org
Dreamwidth Banned by PayPal in 2008 for Refusing to Censor Users
https://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/38065.html
12 comments
"About six months after opening, PayPal -- our payment processor at the time -- demanded that we censor some of our users' content (mostly involving people talking about sex, usually fictionally, in explicit terms) that was legal and protected speech but that they felt violated their terms for using PayPal."
Seems reasonable to me.
Seems reasonable to me.
To me, too. Paypal isn't a government institution. They can choose who to partner with by whatever metrics they want.
That argument becomes weaker as responsibilities and power are transferred from the government to the private sector. How many of the rules that we follow are currently dictated by a corporation, rather than a government? Do we not want checks and balances on all rule-makers?
Then why shift such responsibilities to the private sector in the first place? If they must be regulated as stringently as the public sector (especially in terms of things like free speech) then they should be public goods.
I think it's much more viable to translate some of these privately owned aspects of the internet to publicly owned institutions. Then you obtain the free-speech allowances you desire without burdening a private company with further regulation and restrictions.
This isn't the only solution of course though. But just claiming that these goods are so important doesn't necessarily mean they should be treated like government entities. They're not - that's not how the laws here work.
I think it's much more viable to translate some of these privately owned aspects of the internet to publicly owned institutions. Then you obtain the free-speech allowances you desire without burdening a private company with further regulation and restrictions.
This isn't the only solution of course though. But just claiming that these goods are so important doesn't necessarily mean they should be treated like government entities. They're not - that's not how the laws here work.
I don't believe that government is seriously hindered by free speech, but rather by it's lack of profit-incentive and by the perverse incentives of our current implementation of democracy. We should expand the free speech rights, and other basic human rights, to cover all people in all situations.
Actually, that profit incentive thing is debatable, I take that back. A for-profit government could be quite horrifying.
Actually, that profit incentive thing is debatable, I take that back. A for-profit government could be quite horrifying.
> Paypal isn't a government institution
So tired of this argument. The fact that Constitution does not prohibit them from doing it does not mean what they are doing is a good thing. "It's not unconstitutional" is a very low bar to clear, and clearing it doesn't mean you are doing everything right - it only means you are not directly violating the law, which you should be doing anyway. Nobody should get any praise for just not violating the law. And paranoid panicky reaction to literature that mentions sexual relationships is idiotic on the paypal side, is just wrong. I can see how dealing with certain kinds of shady sites in adult industry may be a burden, but dreamwidth is clearly not one of them, and it can be seen very easily if somebody at paypal was willing to spend 10 seconds on it. They just don't care.
> They can choose who to partner with by whatever metrics they want.
And, of course, this is not true for a long time - there's a number of non-discrimination and social-engineering regulations that substantially limit by which metrics you can choose your customers.
So tired of this argument. The fact that Constitution does not prohibit them from doing it does not mean what they are doing is a good thing. "It's not unconstitutional" is a very low bar to clear, and clearing it doesn't mean you are doing everything right - it only means you are not directly violating the law, which you should be doing anyway. Nobody should get any praise for just not violating the law. And paranoid panicky reaction to literature that mentions sexual relationships is idiotic on the paypal side, is just wrong. I can see how dealing with certain kinds of shady sites in adult industry may be a burden, but dreamwidth is clearly not one of them, and it can be seen very easily if somebody at paypal was willing to spend 10 seconds on it. They just don't care.
> They can choose who to partner with by whatever metrics they want.
And, of course, this is not true for a long time - there's a number of non-discrimination and social-engineering regulations that substantially limit by which metrics you can choose your customers.
> Nobody should get any praise for just not violating the law
That's not people's point. Sorry but you're taking the wrong idea from the argument. The point is that there are no laws in the United States that demand private forums have any semblance of "free speech". It's not that it's "not illegal". It's just simply not a concept that has any laws backing it up.
People bring this up because if you have any background in constitutional law, you know that free speech is something that took a long time to define (and most people don't even know what it is...). It's a legal concept, not a societal one. So when you complain that Paypal isn't respecting your free speech, anyone with a background in law goes "???"
Free speech is a legal term. When you say "Free Speech" you're referring to a very specific set of laws and rules that apply to public entities in the U.S. - not private ones. If you're actually talking about a sociological concept, then preface it as such. And if you feel that the laws don't match up in the United States to our perceived values, then say that as well.
But as is, Paypal has nothing to do with free speech. If you want to talk about some other idea, that's not the legal concept of free speech, but how you want Internet companies to operate in the U.S. you need to preface your statement as such.
Otherwise it just comes across as if you don't know what free speech is, so people respond with the tried and true "Paypal isn't the government". They're not trying to shut down any possibility of Paypal being regulated in a way that matches our current definition of free speech, just correcting your improper use of the term (is it pompous? I would say it could be framed better.) In other words, ya'll are arguing circles around each other.
That's not people's point. Sorry but you're taking the wrong idea from the argument. The point is that there are no laws in the United States that demand private forums have any semblance of "free speech". It's not that it's "not illegal". It's just simply not a concept that has any laws backing it up.
People bring this up because if you have any background in constitutional law, you know that free speech is something that took a long time to define (and most people don't even know what it is...). It's a legal concept, not a societal one. So when you complain that Paypal isn't respecting your free speech, anyone with a background in law goes "???"
Free speech is a legal term. When you say "Free Speech" you're referring to a very specific set of laws and rules that apply to public entities in the U.S. - not private ones. If you're actually talking about a sociological concept, then preface it as such. And if you feel that the laws don't match up in the United States to our perceived values, then say that as well.
But as is, Paypal has nothing to do with free speech. If you want to talk about some other idea, that's not the legal concept of free speech, but how you want Internet companies to operate in the U.S. you need to preface your statement as such.
Otherwise it just comes across as if you don't know what free speech is, so people respond with the tried and true "Paypal isn't the government". They're not trying to shut down any possibility of Paypal being regulated in a way that matches our current definition of free speech, just correcting your improper use of the term (is it pompous? I would say it could be framed better.) In other words, ya'll are arguing circles around each other.
> The point is that there are no laws in the United States that demand private forums have any semblance of "free speech".
Since when the only requirement from people to behave decently is that they are forced to do it by the threat of violence from the government? Can't we ask people not to be jerks without threatening them with jail?
> It's a legal concept, not a societal one
Nope, it is a societal one. Legal one follows from that. Laws are created by society, they are not some independent reality that exists by itself. Laws about free speech exist because society values free speech, if it didn't, such laws won't exist - and indeed, societies that do not value such concepts don't have such laws.
> Free speech is a legal term.
Nope again. There is a legal term "free speech", but claiming that's all there is is switching the cause and effect. We value free speech not because we are forced by the laws, given us by Gods. We create laws valuing free speech because we think free speech is a good idea, required for well-functioning society.
> But as is, Paypal has nothing to do with free speech
They have tons to do with free speech - they try to use their power as a major payment provider in order to limit it and suppress people that speak in ways they do not approve of. Of course, their power is not absolute and is no match for the vast powers of the government - but that does not make such use of their power, whatever they have, any less despicable. Maybe less dangerous, yes, but there's no rule that we should only address the very largest threat and completely ignore the lesser ones.
> Otherwise it just comes across as if you don't know what free speech is
No, I know what "free speech" is. That's exactly why I am tired of reducing the concept to bare legalese. It never was that, it is not that, and it will never be that.
> just correcting your improper use of the term
By that revealing that they do not understand the term and have faulty understanding of why we have all these laws at all.
Since when the only requirement from people to behave decently is that they are forced to do it by the threat of violence from the government? Can't we ask people not to be jerks without threatening them with jail?
> It's a legal concept, not a societal one
Nope, it is a societal one. Legal one follows from that. Laws are created by society, they are not some independent reality that exists by itself. Laws about free speech exist because society values free speech, if it didn't, such laws won't exist - and indeed, societies that do not value such concepts don't have such laws.
> Free speech is a legal term.
Nope again. There is a legal term "free speech", but claiming that's all there is is switching the cause and effect. We value free speech not because we are forced by the laws, given us by Gods. We create laws valuing free speech because we think free speech is a good idea, required for well-functioning society.
> But as is, Paypal has nothing to do with free speech
They have tons to do with free speech - they try to use their power as a major payment provider in order to limit it and suppress people that speak in ways they do not approve of. Of course, their power is not absolute and is no match for the vast powers of the government - but that does not make such use of their power, whatever they have, any less despicable. Maybe less dangerous, yes, but there's no rule that we should only address the very largest threat and completely ignore the lesser ones.
> Otherwise it just comes across as if you don't know what free speech is
No, I know what "free speech" is. That's exactly why I am tired of reducing the concept to bare legalese. It never was that, it is not that, and it will never be that.
> just correcting your improper use of the term
By that revealing that they do not understand the term and have faulty understanding of why we have all these laws at all.
We can always ask people to not be jerks. Free speech is indeed a societal concept. In the context of This conversation on this subject however, it is a legal one. We are asking what Paypal should do. Paypal is a corporation. They should do whatever benefits them and their shareholders the most. They are currently doing that. Even if you don't agree morally, that is what they are doing. Therefore, our societal definition of free speech does not match with our legal one.
Thus we must change our legal one. Therefore, I claim that our conversation is implicitly and inherently about the legal definition of free speech and what that should be. Paypal has no obligation, no requirement to do anything unless the law is changed accordingly. Otherwise they will continue to operate in the way that benefits them and their shareholders the most.
My point was simply that you're not explictly asking to change the law when you should be. As the law is currently written Paypal is doing everything right. If that is still wrong for a moral and societal perspective, how do we change the laws to match? Specifically, how do you change the laws in a way that upholds our previous decisions and court cases because these have served as bedrock principles.
I wasn't attacking you mate, my bad - just trying to get you to be more specific.
Thus we must change our legal one. Therefore, I claim that our conversation is implicitly and inherently about the legal definition of free speech and what that should be. Paypal has no obligation, no requirement to do anything unless the law is changed accordingly. Otherwise they will continue to operate in the way that benefits them and their shareholders the most.
My point was simply that you're not explictly asking to change the law when you should be. As the law is currently written Paypal is doing everything right. If that is still wrong for a moral and societal perspective, how do we change the laws to match? Specifically, how do you change the laws in a way that upholds our previous decisions and court cases because these have served as bedrock principles.
I wasn't attacking you mate, my bad - just trying to get you to be more specific.
> We can always ask people to not be jerks.
That's what is being asked from paypal now. And the response is "they are not the government, so by law they can be jerks". Well, duh. That's not the point!
> In the context of This conversation on this subject however, it is a legal one.
Nope, it isn't. It only is because some misguided people want to make it one. That's exactly what I am tired of - of trying to reduce each discussion about norms into "it's legal therefore it's ok". Nope, nope and nope.
> Thus we must change our legal one.
Terrible idea. Enforcing decency by legislation has always backfired, and trying to reduce societal norms to bare "would you get in jail for this?" never worked well. There are more to society than jails, and there is more to improving society than governmental violence.
> My point was simply that you're not explictly asking to change the law when you should be
And my point you are approaching it wrong, and the law is the least of the issues here. That's the whole point. Regulating such things by the law is the worst idea ever. It would backfire and hurt the very people it purports to protect, and all around them too.
> As the law is currently written Paypal is doing everything right.
Paypal is going everything legal, but not right. These are different things, and they always will be. The law only defines what is so egregiously wrong that you deserve to be hurt if you are doing that. It will never define what is right. Its our job, as a society. We can't just put it on a bunch of lawyers and be done with it.
That's what is being asked from paypal now. And the response is "they are not the government, so by law they can be jerks". Well, duh. That's not the point!
> In the context of This conversation on this subject however, it is a legal one.
Nope, it isn't. It only is because some misguided people want to make it one. That's exactly what I am tired of - of trying to reduce each discussion about norms into "it's legal therefore it's ok". Nope, nope and nope.
> Thus we must change our legal one.
Terrible idea. Enforcing decency by legislation has always backfired, and trying to reduce societal norms to bare "would you get in jail for this?" never worked well. There are more to society than jails, and there is more to improving society than governmental violence.
> My point was simply that you're not explictly asking to change the law when you should be
And my point you are approaching it wrong, and the law is the least of the issues here. That's the whole point. Regulating such things by the law is the worst idea ever. It would backfire and hurt the very people it purports to protect, and all around them too.
> As the law is currently written Paypal is doing everything right.
Paypal is going everything legal, but not right. These are different things, and they always will be. The law only defines what is so egregiously wrong that you deserve to be hurt if you are doing that. It will never define what is right. Its our job, as a society. We can't just put it on a bunch of lawyers and be done with it.
The issue is that large corporations like these don't care about norms or morals. They only care about the law because as a collective they can shift any moral responsibility into ambiguity.
No duder at paypal thinks they're morally responsible for this decision. My point is that because Paypal is a company whose only goal is to make money, lecturing them on morals is pointless. If you want to impose your morals on them, the only way to do so is legislation (impose is a strong word here sorry).
In other words, you're wasting your breath because Paypal doesn't care about morality or norms. We must restrict them via legislation that matches our societal values.
> Enforcing decency by legislation has always backfired
Murder? Rape? These are crimes whose very existence is to enforce decency via legislation. The social norms come first I agree, but you need the law to help prevent morally reprehensible behavior. That's kind of one of its main purposes.
I agree we must have a conversation of morals first and legality later, but the legal conversation needs to actually happen. And until it does, no large corporate entity will care.
No duder at paypal thinks they're morally responsible for this decision. My point is that because Paypal is a company whose only goal is to make money, lecturing them on morals is pointless. If you want to impose your morals on them, the only way to do so is legislation (impose is a strong word here sorry).
In other words, you're wasting your breath because Paypal doesn't care about morality or norms. We must restrict them via legislation that matches our societal values.
> Enforcing decency by legislation has always backfired
Murder? Rape? These are crimes whose very existence is to enforce decency via legislation. The social norms come first I agree, but you need the law to help prevent morally reprehensible behavior. That's kind of one of its main purposes.
I agree we must have a conversation of morals first and legality later, but the legal conversation needs to actually happen. And until it does, no large corporate entity will care.
> The issue is that large corporations like these don't care about norms or morals
Literally every PR message of every large corporation lately says the opposite. Even if they were all liars, why would they all lie about the same things if not because it is aligned with norms and morals?
> lecturing them on morals is pointless
This is not true, companies are regularly lectured on morality, and often successfully. E.g. just recently several providers were induced to sever ties with a nazi website, for moral reasons. There are numerous other cases, of course, and people are getting fired for moral reasons all the time.
> Murder? Rape?
Murder and rape are way beyond just decency. Those are exactly the things that "if you do them, you deserve to be hurt, badly". The government is good at enforcing those. It is not good at enforcing things that needs to be handled in more complicated ways, like finding proper society norms of behavior and enforcing them. As you probably understand, "at least he doesn't murder or rape anyone" is not really a definition of a good person, there's a bit more to it than that.
> The social norms come first I agree, but you need the law to help prevent morally reprehensible behavior
Do you? So, if you leave a small tip or don't smile back when somebody greets you, or don't hold the door for somebody when they walk behind you, you should go to jail? I think even North Korea doesn't go that far. With this approach, your ideal world would out-totalitarian the most totalitarian regimes known to humanity.
> And until it does, no large corporate entity will care.
As I said, this is demonstrably false. Moreover, there exist many successful organizations that has been and continue to demonstrate it being false every day.
Literally every PR message of every large corporation lately says the opposite. Even if they were all liars, why would they all lie about the same things if not because it is aligned with norms and morals?
> lecturing them on morals is pointless
This is not true, companies are regularly lectured on morality, and often successfully. E.g. just recently several providers were induced to sever ties with a nazi website, for moral reasons. There are numerous other cases, of course, and people are getting fired for moral reasons all the time.
> Murder? Rape?
Murder and rape are way beyond just decency. Those are exactly the things that "if you do them, you deserve to be hurt, badly". The government is good at enforcing those. It is not good at enforcing things that needs to be handled in more complicated ways, like finding proper society norms of behavior and enforcing them. As you probably understand, "at least he doesn't murder or rape anyone" is not really a definition of a good person, there's a bit more to it than that.
> The social norms come first I agree, but you need the law to help prevent morally reprehensible behavior
Do you? So, if you leave a small tip or don't smile back when somebody greets you, or don't hold the door for somebody when they walk behind you, you should go to jail? I think even North Korea doesn't go that far. With this approach, your ideal world would out-totalitarian the most totalitarian regimes known to humanity.
> And until it does, no large corporate entity will care.
As I said, this is demonstrably false. Moreover, there exist many successful organizations that has been and continue to demonstrate it being false every day.
> The point is that there are no laws in the United States that demand private forums have any semblance of "free speech".
The first amendment gives the forum free speech, which means that the forum is free to decide what speech it will relay and what speech it will not.
The first amendment gives the forum free speech, which means that the forum is free to decide what speech it will relay and what speech it will not.
Yeah I meant in terms of what the forum can regulate on behalf of its members - not in terms of the forum's collective ability to speak. I worded that badly I'll admit.
Right, I was leveraging the imprecise wording to segue into an explanation that not only is there no law restricting forum operators from regulating content, but actually a fundamental law protecting their right to do so.
> When you say "Free Speech"
You are the only person in this thread who has used "free speech" in a comment so far.
> If you want to talk about some other idea, that's not the legal concept of free speech, but how you want Internet companies to operate in the U.S.
The comment you are responding to did just that.
You are the only person in this thread who has used "free speech" in a comment so far.
> If you want to talk about some other idea, that's not the legal concept of free speech, but how you want Internet companies to operate in the U.S.
The comment you are responding to did just that.
I'm sorry, of course he didn't use those words exactly you're correct. There's no need to be so pedantic though, clearly that's the concept the people he is responding to are talking about.
A says that this should be considered "free speech" (not in words but in intention) B says that Paypal isn't a government entity. C says that shouldn't matter.
I'm responding to C, so I say "When you say Free Speech" as a rhetorical technique to recenter our argument on the thing actually being discussed. I apologize if there was confusion or it seemed I was being clever or something.
A says that this should be considered "free speech" (not in words but in intention) B says that Paypal isn't a government entity. C says that shouldn't matter.
I'm responding to C, so I say "When you say Free Speech" as a rhetorical technique to recenter our argument on the thing actually being discussed. I apologize if there was confusion or it seemed I was being clever or something.
While I agree with this reasoning, I wish it was used consistently; on other issues, people here frequently bring up things like redlining or (hypothetical) refusal of services in rural areas as examples of why companies shouldn't be allowed to choose their customers.
As far as I have ever found in the literature, redlining was an outcome of financial risk calculations, not based on discriminatory racial ideology.
This is true, but people still took issue with it because (as far as I can tell) they believe anything that happens to end up effectively along racial lines is racist regardless of intent. This is also orthogonal to the question, which is whether businesses should be allowed to choose their customers.
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Not completely; they couldn't decide to use 'whiteness of yoru skin' as a metric for decision. I think there should absolutely be limits to what you can use to determine if you do business with someone, but where exactly the line is is not an easy question to answer.
IF skin color did correlate to higher fraud rate or expenses for PayPal, then requiring them to service people of all colors equally would be unfair to the company. In this case PayPal is refusing service apparently because processing payments for the adult industry is inherently risky and correlates with higher rates of fraud or illegal activity or chargebacks, etc. Since the same issue doesn't exist for skin color, you can't really draw that as a parallel.
This is why adult-friendly payment processors like CCBill continue to flourish.
Why, exactly, would that be a reasonable thing to do for a /payment processor/?
They're allowed to set their own Terms of Use.
I understand. My question is more about how much freedom they should have with their own ToS.
Let me explain why I think this question is important.
First, we all value freedom and in particular everyone should be allowed to offer business at his own terms.
However, payment providers are essential for online businesses.
This means the freedom of payment providers to refuse business collides with the freedom of other entities to do business /at all/.
IMHO, such situations should be regulated by laws to ensure a balance of forces.
Let me explain why I think this question is important.
First, we all value freedom and in particular everyone should be allowed to offer business at his own terms.
However, payment providers are essential for online businesses.
This means the freedom of payment providers to refuse business collides with the freedom of other entities to do business /at all/.
IMHO, such situations should be regulated by laws to ensure a balance of forces.
"It took us a few months to find a payment processor willing to take money for us without concern trolling about our users' immortal souls or whatever..."
Pretty much the best line ever.
Pretty much the best line ever.
This is a perfect use case for cryptocurrencies.
Imagine if they had started taking bitcoin payments in 2009, 2010, 2011 or 2012?
They wouldn't have to be worrying about their seed fund or keeping the doors open at this point.
They wouldn't have to be worrying about their seed fund or keeping the doors open at this point.
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and take what may be an unpopular position: If you're a financial services firm, you should be forbidden from refusing services to anyone who is not committing an illegal act. Services like PayPal are starting to sound like insurance companies prior to the ACA. If it's not illegal you should not be allowed to turn customers away.
Doesn't this open up the door to using legality as a proxy for morality? Shouldn't a company, regardless of the service they provide, be free to establish their own conditions under which they will act or not act?
It's strange that you would make a slippery slope argument in this context, because a slippery slope is the situation we're already in. If there are going to be circumstances in which a company refuses service, I'd rather they be a) decided on democratically and b) visible to everyone in the RSA, rather than behind an opaque corporate structure. The current situation is much worse.
morality is relevant, rarely people that is doing something that we think immoral see their acts as immoral too.
"Shouldn't a company, regardless of the service they provide, be free to establish their own conditions under which they will act or not act?"
like a restaurant in south refusing to serve blacks? with restaurant you have at least some options, but with businesses with monopoly finding an alternative is very hard or expensive.
"Shouldn't a company, regardless of the service they provide, be free to establish their own conditions under which they will act or not act?"
like a restaurant in south refusing to serve blacks? with restaurant you have at least some options, but with businesses with monopoly finding an alternative is very hard or expensive.
>like a restaurant in south refusing to serve blacks?
Which would be illegal as race is a legally protected status.
Which would be illegal as race is a legally protected status.
Isn't sexual identity / orientation protected as well? These companies are banning clients for simply talking about sex.
That seems like a grey area but it's treading pretty close to discrimination in my mind.
Then again, should Google be forced to put adsense ads on a porn site? Really murky territory.
That seems like a grey area but it's treading pretty close to discrimination in my mind.
Then again, should Google be forced to put adsense ads on a porn site? Really murky territory.
> Isn't sexual identity / orientation protected as well?
Nope. As I understand it, sexual orientation is not officially a protected class[0]. Seems like it should be, but it isn't.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class
Nope. As I understand it, sexual orientation is not officially a protected class[0]. Seems like it should be, but it isn't.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class
> Isn't sexual identity / orientation protected as well?
It is not protected under federal public accommodation law like race is.
Gender identity and sexual orientation are each protected under minority of state laws (overlapping but not identical minorities, IIRC.)
> That seems like a grey area but it's treading pretty close to discrimination in my mind.
It's absolutely discrimination. The question is whether it is or should be illegal discrimination.
It is not protected under federal public accommodation law like race is.
Gender identity and sexual orientation are each protected under minority of state laws (overlapping but not identical minorities, IIRC.)
> That seems like a grey area but it's treading pretty close to discrimination in my mind.
It's absolutely discrimination. The question is whether it is or should be illegal discrimination.
Yes. It is now.
Legislation to make it illegal was an act of society deciding that an otherwise-legal business decision was so unpalatable it must be prevented. -- That's what makes it such a good hypothetical. You can ask yourself "if such business decisions were legal, should they be prevented or discouraged? And what mechanisms would be appropriate?"
So I don't understand your point. Yes, it's illegal now.
Are you arguing for companies to always operate as they see fit, as long as it's legal, and regardless of moral opinions of anyone other than themselves?
Are you arguing that there shouldn't be any moral-based laws to stop discrimination like this one?
Are you making a point that companies should be stopped from making immoral decisions with the force of law beyond the current limitations?
Are you making a point that the current set of groups legislation gives legal protection perfectly overlaps with the set of groups that that morally should have protection from otherwise-legal business decisions?
Are you simply being a pedant about the current boundaries of law without meaningful contribution to clean up the hypothetical or clarify the questions raised by the conversation at hand?
Legislation to make it illegal was an act of society deciding that an otherwise-legal business decision was so unpalatable it must be prevented. -- That's what makes it such a good hypothetical. You can ask yourself "if such business decisions were legal, should they be prevented or discouraged? And what mechanisms would be appropriate?"
So I don't understand your point. Yes, it's illegal now.
Are you arguing for companies to always operate as they see fit, as long as it's legal, and regardless of moral opinions of anyone other than themselves?
Are you arguing that there shouldn't be any moral-based laws to stop discrimination like this one?
Are you making a point that companies should be stopped from making immoral decisions with the force of law beyond the current limitations?
Are you making a point that the current set of groups legislation gives legal protection perfectly overlaps with the set of groups that that morally should have protection from otherwise-legal business decisions?
Are you simply being a pedant about the current boundaries of law without meaningful contribution to clean up the hypothetical or clarify the questions raised by the conversation at hand?
It was legal when they were doing it! Legal != ethical
Race, being an immutable characteristic of a human being, is quite different from restrictions on the nature of created content.
What about religion? Religion is, strictly speaking, mutable. But, for me at least, saying "no Muslims" or "no Sikhs" is the same level of badness as saying "no blacks".
Religion is a tricky one.... It is mutable, but most people (a) don't change their religion in their lifetime and (b) use religion as a proxy signal for social identity, including many things that aren't mutable.
In practice: I'd take the bet that a white person of Muslim faith could get around a "no Muslims" rule most of the time. "No Muslims", then, can be a proxy for "no middle-Eastern looking folks".
In practice: I'd take the bet that a white person of Muslim faith could get around a "no Muslims" rule most of the time. "No Muslims", then, can be a proxy for "no middle-Eastern looking folks".
Until your private education or health services starts turning people away based on race/religion/political affiliation
There are already laws against discrimination by protected status (race/religion count), and laws about access to health services.
To my (admittedly weak) understanding, those laws affect employment, government agencies, and the ability to get any sort of government funding/aid. Are there laws that actually require organizations to allow membership in or provide services for all people? That doesn't seem workable.
Not only is this workable, but there was a whole movement around these issues in the 1960s called the civil rights movement. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is one of the results of that movement, and this law makes it illegal for a store to refuse service on the basis of race, for example. This is why you don't see signs saying "No Coloreds" in stores any more.
Other laws, like the ADA and FHA, have expanded on this, and individual states have broader protections. Look at the case of Sweet Cakes by Melissa in Oregon, which was fined for refusing to bake a cake for a same-sex couple.
For emergency care, look up the EMTLA. There are many other regulations centered on discrimination and health care, that's just one of them.
Other laws, like the ADA and FHA, have expanded on this, and individual states have broader protections. Look at the case of Sweet Cakes by Melissa in Oregon, which was fined for refusing to bake a cake for a same-sex couple.
For emergency care, look up the EMTLA. There are many other regulations centered on discrimination and health care, that's just one of them.
Which gets really complicated really quickly. There are plenty of cases of benign exclusivity, and plenty of cases of less than benign exclusivity, even in those areas you specifically pointed out.
The horse has LONG left that barn since the "public accommodation" doctrine of the Civil Rights Act. Should Christian bakers be able to refuse catering a gay wedding?
We've got specific exceptions written into law for the things society deems appropriate.
Thats a lot different than 'allow everything with no judgement'
Thats a lot different than 'allow everything with no judgement'
I'm a big fan of "allow everything with no judgement" to be honest. The principles and morals of some will always offend the sensibilities of others. What gives us the right to codify into law which reasons are just and which are not?
Obviously, but that doesn't really mean anything other than reiterating the OP's point.
At which point you have the government making the decision what to mandate.
If the service is important enough that it has to be mandated in some cases then why shouldn't it be mandated in all cases? If it isn't that important, why should it be mandated in any case?
If the service is important enough that it has to be mandated in some cases then why shouldn't it be mandated in all cases? If it isn't that important, why should it be mandated in any case?
Didn't the Supreme Court already decide this? Something along the lines of "prioritize the law, not morals"?
How about refusing to sell someone a cake?
That's not how the US presently works -- see things like the ADA or discrimination laws, which regulate how a business may deny service and what accommodations for customers they must provide.
It's not absurd that an essential civil service -- payment processing -- should be regulated to uphold our collective standards of freedom, and not use their privileged position to impose their private moral standards on society.
It's not absurd that an essential civil service -- payment processing -- should be regulated to uphold our collective standards of freedom, and not use their privileged position to impose their private moral standards on society.
Yeah, it's almost like there's a market for an all-digital decentralized monetary system that does not suffer from flawed and ever-changing human morality judgments, and is only so happy to work in the place of human-driven entities.
"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." -John Gilmore
Banks: Whatever legal business you turn away, you basically give away to crypto; and once it's there, it will never come back. Decide carefully.
"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." -John Gilmore
Banks: Whatever legal business you turn away, you basically give away to crypto; and once it's there, it will never come back. Decide carefully.
That's a GREAT quote.
One of my faves, it's applied time and again to things. It's why Apple made the right move in removing DRM from their music and simply providing a better service- they knew they were up against a darknet that did not care about these rules (but also did not care about service quality/consistency). And he said this in 1993 (!) How prescient was THAT?
People need to realize that risk is itself a market. If everyone avoids risk (such as banks avoiding doing business with any remotely-risky business, such as legal marijuana sales), the first person (or entity) who doesn't shy away from risk stands to gain a lot more than if people were generally less fearful of risk. So cryptocurrencies, being completely fearless, will always fill the financial spaces that have been left vacant by more fearful living entities. ;)
Perhaps there is even an entity that has realized this and is working to instill fear in the hearts of everyone in order to reap greater rewards from their own risk-taking. But I'm off into tinfoil-hat territory, there.
People need to realize that risk is itself a market. If everyone avoids risk (such as banks avoiding doing business with any remotely-risky business, such as legal marijuana sales), the first person (or entity) who doesn't shy away from risk stands to gain a lot more than if people were generally less fearful of risk. So cryptocurrencies, being completely fearless, will always fill the financial spaces that have been left vacant by more fearful living entities. ;)
Perhaps there is even an entity that has realized this and is working to instill fear in the hearts of everyone in order to reap greater rewards from their own risk-taking. But I'm off into tinfoil-hat territory, there.
This is really tough. There are all kinds of reasons why a financial services firm wants to deny services. They could range from trivial (this customer keeps trolling our customer service reps) to more serious (this customer serves an industry with a high fraud rate and we don't have the system or processes in place to handle this) to legally ambiguous situations (marijuana being legal in some states but not others, or arbitrary measure of what constitutes illegal porn).
To make matters worse, Paypal has extreme platform lock-in. For example, you can't move your users billing to another platform; you have to get the user to sign up all over again. On top of that, you have to hope they have another form of compatible payment (i.e. mobile payments, credit card direct, etc).
Paypal holds all the data and when they ban you for whatever reason, they keep it, so even if there is another option, once you commit to Paypal, you are committed.
Paypal holds all the data and when they ban you for whatever reason, they keep it, so even if there is another option, once you commit to Paypal, you are committed.
Personally, I think on that (on balance) it's preferable to have freedom of association. However, I can respect and understand the opposite view as long as it's consistent. A lot of people I know who were of the opinion that bakeries should be legally obligated to bake wedding cakes are now the same people defending cloudflare et al. for refusing access to critical infrastructure (not just cake!) for political reasons.
This inconsistency completely rubs me the wrong way. There's nothing that pisses me off more than hearing people rail against a business's right to refuse service instantly double back when the company did something they like. These are not muddy waters where it's hard to tell you're contradicting yourself; people are outright encouraging things they'd otherwise argue against just because it's going their way.
Since I'm one of those people, let me defend this position.
Cloudflare didn't kick Daily Stormer off until DS started publicly claiming that the reason CF was continuing to serve them was that CF secretly agreed with DS's politics [0]. That was a lie and might even be cause for a libel suit.
The analogy would be if the gay couple secured the agreement of the baker to bake them a wedding cake, then started announcing publicly that the reason the baker was doing that was because the baker was secretly gay. I don't think anyone would have a problem, at that point, with the baker telling them to take their business elsewhere.
Being a member of an unpopular group doesn't give you carte blanche to abuse the goodwill of the private businesses that would otherwise be required to serve you.
The actions of GoDaddy and Google in this case are less defensible, and indeed, I don't defend them. (If I understand correctly, GoDaddy kicked DS off their DNS service, so they went to Google, who not only refused to serve their domain but put it on hold, so they can't even use it elsewhere. I'm not aware that DS provoked either company they way they did Cloudflare.)
[0] https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-stormer/
Cloudflare didn't kick Daily Stormer off until DS started publicly claiming that the reason CF was continuing to serve them was that CF secretly agreed with DS's politics [0]. That was a lie and might even be cause for a libel suit.
The analogy would be if the gay couple secured the agreement of the baker to bake them a wedding cake, then started announcing publicly that the reason the baker was doing that was because the baker was secretly gay. I don't think anyone would have a problem, at that point, with the baker telling them to take their business elsewhere.
Being a member of an unpopular group doesn't give you carte blanche to abuse the goodwill of the private businesses that would otherwise be required to serve you.
The actions of GoDaddy and Google in this case are less defensible, and indeed, I don't defend them. (If I understand correctly, GoDaddy kicked DS off their DNS service, so they went to Google, who not only refused to serve their domain but put it on hold, so they can't even use it elsewhere. I'm not aware that DS provoked either company they way they did Cloudflare.)
[0] https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-stormer/
If CF was legally obligated to offer their services to them, such a claim wouldn't hold water.
I'm not saying CF /should/ be obligated to provide the service to everyone.
I'm just saying if they were, then speculation about any implied agreement would go away.
I'm not saying CF /should/ be obligated to provide the service to everyone.
I'm just saying if they were, then speculation about any implied agreement would go away.
No business is legally required to serve customers who defame and disrupt their business. The law only requires that the same standard be applied to customers who happen to be members of protected classes as is applied to everyone else.
Ask your friends, but I'm assuming that the cake baking cases that they argued about referred to sexual preference being a protected class. Political mindset is not a protected class.
Assuming someone will ask, "Why do we talk about what is (law) rather than what could be (ideals)", you're perfectly fine to hold the ideal that political beliefs should not be discriminated against. But you probably aren't happy with just believing in an ideal, and so you want to know why political belief is not a legally protected class like age, religion, sex, race, etc. This means we have to include real world considerations, including legal history/precedent and the realistic implementation of law, when arguing whether political beliefs should get legal protections.
To make a quick initial argument, I think political belief is hard to protect because it is nearly indistinguishable from any kind of belief. At that point, how sensical is a legal system after it becomes impossible to discriminate on any kind of assertive opinion?
The line is already difficult and blurred with religion (which is protected because of centuries of prior belief and political situations), as we see in the case of a religious baker refusing to bake for gay customers. I'm not saying there's an easy or happy answer to this and similar disputes, just that protection of political beliefs would make things even worse without much benefit.
The other thing to consider is that as someone who has political beliefs and wants to assert them, you have the entire U.S. political system to participate and effect the change you want. But being political is not necessary when following a religion, and in some religions, it's outright antithetical. These folks would have little recourse to petition politicians and lawmakers.
Assuming someone will ask, "Why do we talk about what is (law) rather than what could be (ideals)", you're perfectly fine to hold the ideal that political beliefs should not be discriminated against. But you probably aren't happy with just believing in an ideal, and so you want to know why political belief is not a legally protected class like age, religion, sex, race, etc. This means we have to include real world considerations, including legal history/precedent and the realistic implementation of law, when arguing whether political beliefs should get legal protections.
To make a quick initial argument, I think political belief is hard to protect because it is nearly indistinguishable from any kind of belief. At that point, how sensical is a legal system after it becomes impossible to discriminate on any kind of assertive opinion?
The line is already difficult and blurred with religion (which is protected because of centuries of prior belief and political situations), as we see in the case of a religious baker refusing to bake for gay customers. I'm not saying there's an easy or happy answer to this and similar disputes, just that protection of political beliefs would make things even worse without much benefit.
The other thing to consider is that as someone who has political beliefs and wants to assert them, you have the entire U.S. political system to participate and effect the change you want. But being political is not necessary when following a religion, and in some religions, it's outright antithetical. These folks would have little recourse to petition politicians and lawmakers.
Yes, your comment is correct but also tautological. A protected class is essentially defined as those categories by which businesses are not allowed to choose customers. It would be just as reasonable to include political beliefs as well as e.g. religious beliefs.
It's not tautological. The legislative process in which certain classes were deemed protected was not a simple declaration. I'm not going to try to look up the history and issues that led to religion being explicitly protected in the Forst Amendment, but the American Disabilities Act was passed relatively recently enough to find contemporary accounts of the debate and controversy that preceded its passage:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/07/26/ada.history/index.html
The outlawing of discrimination against disabilities is, IMO, very humane, and it's hard to imagine something like it being sponsored by a very liberal Senator and signed by a Republican president. That said, the law has required significant costs from society. California, which I believe has stronger disability laws, still faces big debate about the cost to businesses:
http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert...
As accepted as ADA is by the status quo, that doesn't mean that the definition of disabled, or of the costs needed to fulfill the law, are easily understood. But I do think its issues and conflicts are relatively simple compared to a law that outlawed discrimination against political beliefs.
How would that even work without getting quickly entangled with the First Amendment? Or even in implemented in everyday life. Business owners have no right whatsoever to fire someone for expressing beliefs that run profoundly counter to the business? Or to kick out a trolling customer?
http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/07/26/ada.history/index.html
The outlawing of discrimination against disabilities is, IMO, very humane, and it's hard to imagine something like it being sponsored by a very liberal Senator and signed by a Republican president. That said, the law has required significant costs from society. California, which I believe has stronger disability laws, still faces big debate about the cost to businesses:
http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert...
As accepted as ADA is by the status quo, that doesn't mean that the definition of disabled, or of the costs needed to fulfill the law, are easily understood. But I do think its issues and conflicts are relatively simple compared to a law that outlawed discrimination against political beliefs.
How would that even work without getting quickly entangled with the First Amendment? Or even in implemented in everyday life. Business owners have no right whatsoever to fire someone for expressing beliefs that run profoundly counter to the business? Or to kick out a trolling customer?
> How would that even work without getting quickly entangled with the First Amendment?
You tell me, you're the one claiming it's unacceptable to refuse to do business with certain kinds of people.
> Business owners have no right whatsoever to fire someone for expressing beliefs that run profoundly counter to the business?
You mean like a Christian business being unable to refuse service to people whose activities run counter to the tenets of Christianity?
Remember, I'm not the one claiming forcing people to do business against their will is acceptable.
You tell me, you're the one claiming it's unacceptable to refuse to do business with certain kinds of people.
> Business owners have no right whatsoever to fire someone for expressing beliefs that run profoundly counter to the business?
You mean like a Christian business being unable to refuse service to people whose activities run counter to the tenets of Christianity?
Remember, I'm not the one claiming forcing people to do business against their will is acceptable.
I think the freedom of association is preferable as well, as long as you deal with the possibility of monopolies the right way.
Financial services firms benefit from the regulatory framework provided by the State therefore it's not unreasonable that the State should make some stipulations of its own.
If you steal from PayPal we don't say "they're a private company, they knew the risks" do we?
If you steal from PayPal we don't say "they're a private company, they knew the risks" do we?
Why shouldn't a company like PayPal be able to pick and choose who they work with? It's not like they have anything close to a monopoly. If you're selling something controversial and PayPal doesn't want it, shop around until you find somebody who does. If every single financial services company rejects you, there's still bitcoin and cash.
I feel like that's a reasonable position given the realities of the near monopolies these kinds of companies have. It would probably be better if there was real freedom of association in these kinds of cases, but you'd actually have to have other options for that to work right.
I think that any financial institution that has FDIC insurance should not be allowed to turn away business unless it would force them to commit an illegal act.
the fundamental issue here is that paypal is actually following russian anti-gay laws
I'd love to understand the business benefit to PayPal of censoring its customers, particularly when the content they are trying to censor is not "criticism of PayPal." Has PayPal actually measured some negative effect on its bottom line when people who use their service talk about sex?
Disclaimer: I'm a PP employee.
While it's complex (and I don't fully understand it all myself), the simple answer is risk management / fraud. Adult content tends to be extremely risky from a fraud and legal compliance perspective and companies like PayPal (and Stripe, and Google Checkout, among others) choose not to do business in this arena because the risk / reward model just doesn't justify it.
Specifically, subscriptions to sites that offer digital adult content are not allowed per ToS:
https://www.paypal.com/us/selfhelp/article/faq569
While it's complex (and I don't fully understand it all myself), the simple answer is risk management / fraud. Adult content tends to be extremely risky from a fraud and legal compliance perspective and companies like PayPal (and Stripe, and Google Checkout, among others) choose not to do business in this arena because the risk / reward model just doesn't justify it.
Specifically, subscriptions to sites that offer digital adult content are not allowed per ToS:
https://www.paypal.com/us/selfhelp/article/faq569
Netflix certainly offers "digital adult content" in shows like Easy, movies like Below Her Mouth, but PayPal accepts their business. You can buy content on Amazon with PayPal, which sells a TON of out and out porn.
Is it maybe more fair to say that small sites that offer adult content are not allowed?
Is it maybe more fair to say that small sites that offer adult content are not allowed?
Likely it's those selling predominantly adult content. Amazon's offerings are not predominantly adult in nature. Nor are Netflix's. Presumably, if there's a higher occurrence of fraud with those merchants whose wares are predominantly adult in nature, processors consider these types of business more risky. However, they (processors) already have a tool at their disposal to combat fraud: the rate that's charged to the merchant for taking payments. My understanding is that riskier businesses tend to pay a higher rate for their card processing as kind of an insurance against (inevitable?) fraud. And then it would be my opinion that an account shouldn't get terminated except due to actual (excessive?) fraud.
> And then it would be my opinion that an account shouldn't get terminated except due to actual (excessive?) fraud.
Except VISA won't tolerant a fraud rate that requires 300% fees to cover costs.
Except VISA won't tolerant a fraud rate that requires 300% fees to cover costs.
From what I've read about this elsewhere, sites offering mainly or predominantly (what some may take as) pornographic content are much more likely to have credit card charges disputed and refunded. Husband buys porn, wife notices the charge, husbands denies it was him and demands refund. Minor buys porn with parent's account, gets caught, denies he did it, parent disputes charge. The payment processor ends up eating the disputed charges, to the point where it is no longer profitable to do business with the sites.
People are much less likely to deny that they opened a Netflix subscription.
People are much less likely to deny that they opened a Netflix subscription.
FWIW My understanding is that (non-educational, etc) sexual content tends to have a much higher chargeback / dispute / resolution cost. It's always about the dollars and cents I guess.
Good for PayPal, they are a private business and can choose who they will allow on their platform.
People still use Paypal? Abandoned my account 2 years ago, never looked back.
Yeah, PayPal has lost lots of users to new services like Venmo. Fortunately for PayPal, they own Venmo.
They banned me 10+ years ago for violating the ToS (which apparently included being over 18 years old). I probably would have forgiven this (I did break the rules, after all) except for the fact that they elected to keep my money for 6 months and collect interest in the meantime.
However, that is what eventually got me into Bitcoin, so maybe I actually owe them some thanks for sucking so badly.
However, that is what eventually got me into Bitcoin, so maybe I actually owe them some thanks for sucking so badly.
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How is this allowed in Paypal policies?
Ah yes, the eminent moral authority of PayPal.
Time to move to Stripe.
And they don't allow things like porn, gambling, and guns. I'm OK with payment processors setting their own rules based on their own ethics, but its a problem if all we have is this little oligopoly of choices. We need more choices.
What's the reasoning for not allowing those things? Does it bring additional legal problems or something? I could see the issue with potential child porn or something like that but shouldn't a payment processor be siloed from any legal issues there?
Stripe lists their reasoning here https://stripe.com/blog/why-some-businesses-arent-allowed
A lot of it has to do with the underlying financial companies.
Overall, given Stripe's constraints, it seems pretty reasonable.
A lot of it has to do with the underlying financial companies.
Overall, given Stripe's constraints, it seems pretty reasonable.
The biggest thing payments processors are concerned about is fraud. Certain lines of business are risky because they simply result in more fraud, plus there's a whole other level of restrictions enforced by the banks themselves. I don't know what the exact reasoning was behind the ban in the article, but there are entire teams dedicated to developing risk models that attempt to identify merchants that will end up resulting in a loss before it happens.
Payments processors like PayPal may just be middlemen between banks, but if the merchant owes the bank money and is suddenly nowhere to be found, the processor is the one who takes the hit.
Payments processors like PayPal may just be middlemen between banks, but if the merchant owes the bank money and is suddenly nowhere to be found, the processor is the one who takes the hit.
> there are entire teams dedicated to developing risk models that attempt to identify merchants that will end up resulting in a loss before it happens.
And yet they are unable to distinguish a legitimate and widely popular blog hosting site which does not intend to defraud anyone but allows people to host erotic fiction, from a shady porn site. Makes you kinda question what those teams are doing the whole day, doesn't it?
And yet they are unable to distinguish a legitimate and widely popular blog hosting site which does not intend to defraud anyone but allows people to host erotic fiction, from a shady porn site. Makes you kinda question what those teams are doing the whole day, doesn't it?
I imagine MUCH higher fraud and chargeback risks. I think a lot of places won't deal with porn sites because of the 'fraud' (real or claimed) issues.
Gambling may be illegal under US law, so I can see why you'd avoid that.
Gambling may be illegal under US law, so I can see why you'd avoid that.
Contrary to popular belief, gambling is not illegal under US law.
In fact, certain types of gambling (horse racing) are explicitly protected by federal law, and generally gambling laws are up to the states (online gambling of all kinds is perfectly legal in NV and NJ).
Betting online on horse races is explicitly legal in 30+ states, and not explicitly illegal in several more. Certain jurisdictions disallow online betting on horse races if you live within some radius of a local horse track.
[Edit: to clarify, some forms of gambling are explicitly disallowed across state lines, but that ban does not have any impact within state lines]
In fact, certain types of gambling (horse racing) are explicitly protected by federal law, and generally gambling laws are up to the states (online gambling of all kinds is perfectly legal in NV and NJ).
Betting online on horse races is explicitly legal in 30+ states, and not explicitly illegal in several more. Certain jurisdictions disallow online betting on horse races if you live within some radius of a local horse track.
[Edit: to clarify, some forms of gambling are explicitly disallowed across state lines, but that ban does not have any impact within state lines]
Porn would change the status of their merchant account to 'high risk' which means higher fees. Gambling is illegal in many jurisdictions. Guns may be their own decision.
I'm not certain on their reasoning for banning payments related to guns, but for porn and gambling they have a very good business case for denying it. Both of those verticals have astronomically higher chargeback rates compared to other verticals, and that's just bad for the bottom line.
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Ok, so bitcoin then
Worse, the detail that was cherry-picked (presumably because censorship issues are a hot topic) refers to something which the article makes clear happened years ago. Making it sound like it happened today ("Dreamwidth Banned by PayPal for Refusing to Censor Users") was egregiously misleading. We take story submission privileges away from users who do this kind of thing, so please don't do it. I've added 2008 to the title above as a fire extinguisher.
Submitters: If you want to say what you think is important about an article, you're welcome to do so by posting a comment to the thread. Then your view is on a level field with everyone else's.